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  • The Others’ Austria: Impressions of American and British Travelers, Volume Two: 1919–2007 by Horst and Lois Jarka
  • Laura A. Detre
Horst and Lois Jarka, The Others’ Austria: Impressions of American and British Travelers, Volume Two: 1919–2007. Riverside: Ariadne Press, 2011. 473 pp.

Four years ago I had the privilege of reviewing in this periodical the first volume in Horst and Lois Jarka’s series, The Others’ Austria, and at that time I stated that I was looking forward to seeing the next volume. Now that it has arrived, I am pleased to report that it is every bit as informative and insightful as I had hoped it would be. The Jarkas have collected a variety of interesting texts, written by British and American visitors to post–World War I Austria, and these writings tell us a tremendous amount both about Austria and about the expectations of Anglophone travelers visiting a country that had been profoundly changed by the Great War.

This volume follows the same formula as their first book. Each chapter covers an era in Austrian history, in this case beginning with the end of World War I and continuing to the rise of the far right under the leadership of Jörg Haider. The Jarkas have included a variety of English-speaking writers, some of them well known, such as Thomas Wolfe and W.H. Auden, while others are less prominent; all manage to give the reader significant insight into the situation of Austria in the twentieth century. Some writers, such as Ernest Hemingway, reported largely positive opinions on Austria and the Austrians, whereas others, like John Irving, commented negatively on the country, in his case noting the lingering anti-Semitism in post–World War II Austria. Many authors wrote about their personal experiences, but others, such as Margaret Kennedy and Graham Greene, wrote fictionalized accounts that were well received in the Anglophone world. A good portion of these writings focus on the city of Vienna, but the Jarkas have also included observations on rural Austria, particularly Tyrol and Lower Austria, two areas that have traditionally attracted large numbers of tourists. The writers included in this volume observed terrific poverty in the years after World War I, the rise of both Austrofascism and Nazism in the 1930s, the reconstruction of an independent Austrian state after World War II, and the entrenchment of the myth of a neutral, peaceful Austria—the land of mountains and waltzes that would become a tourist mecca in the second half of the twentieth century.

As with their first volume, the editors have had to draw some boundaries to keep this project manageable. Since this book is focused on the period after World War I, they were able to limit their scope geographically, but, as a [End Page 136] reader, I am left with certain questions about the years covered (or not covered) in this text. Specifically, by ending the previous volume with writing before 1914 and beginning this one in the year 1919, they have chosen not to cover the years of the First World War. Likewise, the Jarkas include a whole chapter of writings on March of 1938, the year of the Anschluss between Austria and Nazi Germany, but the next chapter focuses on texts from the post–World War II era. This is understandable; both the United States and Britain went to war with Germany and, consequently, most British and American citizens could not remain in Central Europe. Those who did stay, though, would certainly have had interesting observations to make about wartime Austria. Strictly speaking, most Anglophones in Austria during either war would have been residents and not travelers; because they remained in an enemy country during war they might have been reluctant to discuss their experiences and observations, but nonetheless I would love to have some insights into the two world wars from English-speakers in Central Europe.

This book should be of interest to scholars in a number of fields. Certainly, anyone who studies mid-twentieth-century Austria will find something new in this text. It should also appeal to historians in the growing field of leisure studies, regardless of their particular geographic focus...

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